Huskies fall to Hazen 6-5

OTHELLO – Down three runs in the bottom of the seventh inning, a late rally wasn’t enough for the Othello Huskies to overtake Hazen on Thursday afternoon, falling 6-5 in Othello.

“We really battled offensively, and it was good to see that our kids could battle at the plate,” Othello Head Coach Sonny Garza said. “Putting the ball in play, putting pressure on the defense. It was really good to see that.”

Both the Huskies and Highlanders took advantage of scoring off of wild pitches, combining for five runs in the game. Hazen struck first by scoring two runs off of back-to-back wild pitches, taking a 2-0 lead in the top of the fourth inning. Huskie sophomore Sonny Salazar answered with a solo home run in the bottom of the fourth inning to cut the lead to one.

“I know what pitch I was looking for, and he just gave it to me,” Salazar said. “Giving our team a run when we were down by two, it felt really good.”

While Othello was unable to add any more runs after Salazar’s homer, the Huskies started to get on base in the bottom of the fifth. Senior Eliez Gutierrez stole home on a wild pitch to tie the game, and sophomore Kal-El Ozuna did the same thing to give Othello its first lead of the game.

“(Salazar’s home run) was a really big hit to get the team going,” Garza said. “He’s been a kid (whose energy) the team rides off of. When he’s doing well, most kids are able to feed off of that and it gets our team going.”

A two-RBI single by Hazen gave the Highlanders a 4-3 lead, which was pushed to 5-3 after another Hazen baserunner stole home off a wild pitch.

“We’ve just got to try and focus more on throwing strikes,” Garza said. “Don’t get too far ahead of ourselves, don’t try to do too much. Maybe have a little more trust in our defense, knowing that our defense is going to make plays for us. We’ll try to hopefully iron that up before we get to Saturday’s league games.”

After another RBI single, Hazen’s lead was 6-3 entering the bottom of the sixth inning.

“It’s really tough (to stop the momentum),” Garza said. “That’s the game of baseball, you try to stay out of those big innings. Once they try to get momentum, you try to do anything you possibly can to get an out and change the focus to something else. You try to stay positive. In baseball, those things are going to happen.”

Othello freshman Trey Tovar batted in a run in the bottom of the sixth inning and Salazar did the same in the bottom of the seventh inning, but Othello was unable to add any additional runs.

“I was happy to see how the kids bounced back the next inning,” Garza said. “We got a few more runs to try and shorten up the lead. I was really happy with how they bounced back.”

After a Saturday doubleheader against Prosser, the Huskies will travel to Jenkins (Chewelah) for a non-league contest at 3 p.m.

“We’re finishing hard and finishing the whole game,” Salazar said. “We probably have to work on the little things. It’s a close game, but at the end of the day, there’s still a lot of errors we made. We need to pick it up, and I think once we pick it up we’ll be good.”

Ian Bivona can be reached at ibivona@columbiabasinherald.com.

Box Score

Hazen 0-0-0-2-0-4-0 6

Othello 0-0-0-1-2-1-1 5